Talk:James I of England
Since "present" in ADF is 1988, the latter succession box needs some modification. Is James II and VII still James I and VI's successor? I actually kind of like the younger James; a friend of the Irish, he was, who brought those nasty Scots Presbyterian bigots to heel in their crusade to eliminate Romish worship from the Isle. Turtle Fan 06:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC) Good point. My plan was to leave it as incumbent until I'd finished the book. But that issue is never addressed. We do learn that England turned to the "divine right of kings" model, and never turned back. No mention of Cromwell and the rebellion. TR 15:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC) No Cromwell? That's great. He sucked. I wonder if there's tolerance for Catholicism? Turtle Fan 15:51, 26 April 2007 (UTC) Sounds like there wasn't tolerance for much of anything. TR 16:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC) I should probably know this, but why was he an Anglican? In his youth he was up to his eyeballs in people belonging to what would eventually become the Presbyterian church, and every one of them was determined to sure he was brought up much the same. He did live with the Earl of Lennox for a little while, but Lennox wasn't an Anglican, either. Turtle Fan 22:44, August 20, 2010 (UTC) :I once read somewhere that he REALLY, REALLY hated his mother, and so rejected as much as he could of her, including her faith. Can't source it, though, so take that with some quantity of salt. TR 01:21, August 21, 2010 (UTC) ::Everyone he encountered in his youth, near enough, except perhaps Lord James, pretty much indoctrinated him to hate her. One of his caretakers received frequent shipments of toys and gifts from her, and he would sell them, pocket the money, and tell James "See? She forgot your birthday again!" ::However, when he grew up he seems to have realized he'd been dicked with. When she died he ordered his entire court to wear mourning garb; officially he said that he'd do it for the death of any former King or Queen of Scots, but firsthand accounts suggest he felt the loss very personally. And years later, when he was King of England, he ordered a much larger funeral than she'd had at the time of her death and moved her body to a tomb under Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth's remains lie in the same crypt, but there's a large support column between the two, so even now she's being denied her request to meet her cousin face to face. The Queen of Scots' story does not lack pathos. ::Anyway, Mary had reluctantly agreed to have James brought up Protestant, probably under durress, but she did recognize that she believed her own unfamiliarity with Scotland's majority religion had been a constant hindrance to her and that she wanted James to be "familiar" with the details of the creed. But the Protestants of Scotland weren't Anglican, unless they were English ex-pats; politically, Anglicanism would likely have been considered treasonous, and doctrinally and liturgically, Knox found it quite nearly as distasteful as Catholicism, though he didn't have much reason to preach against it. Turtle Fan 12:29, August 21, 2010 (UTC) RB speculation Don't know why my mind is thinking in this course, but aside from James, who else could lay claim to the English throne after Elizabeth died? TR 19:31, August 26, 2010 (UTC) :Beyond the Stuarts and the by-now late Lady Jane Gray, I quickly lose track of Henry VIII's sisters' families. But now I'm curious too so I've got something open in another window. :We know of course that James was the great-grandson of Henry VII's daughter Margaret by her first husband, James IV, King of Scots, on his mother's side. On his father's side he was once again the great-grandson of Margaret (umm, yuck), this time by her second husband, Archibald Douglas. They had a daughter, Margaret, who married Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox. Lennox had two sons, Henry, Lord Darnley (James's infamous father) and Charles. Charles had a daughter named Arabella. She was James's first cousin. Burleigh hated her and nipped in the bud any plans Elizabeth might have had to name her as heir presumptive. Allegedly there was at least one plot to overthrow James and replace him with Arabella, and when Arabella married the Duke of Somerset without James's permission, they were both thrown into the klink. :Said Duke of Somerset was the son of Edward Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp. Seymour was the great-grandson of Henry VIII's younger sister, and was at the time of Elizabeth's death the senior living member of that line. He had the advantage of the fact that in Henry VIII's will specifically disinherited Margaret and said that, should his line fail, Mary's heirs would inherit the throne. So the marriage between Arabella and Somerset united one strong claimant on the throne with the son and heir of another, which is why James objected. ::Somerset, by the way, married Lady Frances Devereux after Arabella's death. Frances was daughter of Robert Devereux and maternal granddaughter of Francis Walsingham. Devereux was the adoptive son of Robin Dudley, and there have always been rumors that Dudley was Elizabeth's secret lover. :At another point in Elizabeth's long reign, Lady Margaret Clifford was heiress presumptive. She died in 1596. Her first son had predeceased her. Her second son was William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby. He lived till 1642. He would have an outside chance. He's the only person encountered thus far that I had ever heard of, due to the fact that his name has been occasionally bandied about by those soft-headed people who dispute Shakespeare's authorship of his works. :That's it for Tudors. The third Gray daughter, Mary, married Thomas Keyes, who was Elizabeth's Royal Gatekeeper. Elizabeth understood this as an attempt by Keyes to jockey for position to have his son succeed her. Elizabeth declared "I'll have no little bastard Keyes laying claim to my throne!" She put Mary under house arrest until Keyes died; they never consummated. Mary herself died just a few years later, in her early thirties, childless and penniless. Those who romanticize Elizabeth forget how cruel she could be. This wasn't someone with a declared intention of claiming the throne, like Mary Queen of Scots or Devereux. This was just a poor girl whose existence was inconvenient to the Queen. :Of course, the Hapsburgs and their allies suggested Infanta Isabella, descendant of the Lancasters. Obviously, after the conclusion of RB she would never, ever be invited to take the throne by Parliament, and the end of the novel leaves the Spanish prospects of restoring her by force looking none too good. :Given how distant and controversial each of these claims are, I imagine more than one of the above named people would be pushing their claims, each recruiting supporters among the wealthy and powerful. If we eliminate James from succession it's very easy to picture the seventeenth century looking like the fifteenth, with the contests among Seymours, Stewarts, and Stanleys becoming a three-way York/Lancaster redux. You might even get the distant descendants of Wars of the Roses losers jumping into it, saying the Tudors had never been a legitimate dynasty to begin with and it's time to correct that error, though with five monarchs, some very popular, and two lifetimes since Bosworth Field, that's a hard sell. My read has always been that the only reasons there was so little resistance to James coming in was that he was already a king (one whose army might have considered attempting to install him by force if he were passed up?) and that his powerful allies in London, especially the Cecils, had spent so much time making straight the path. Turtle Fan 22:11, August 26, 2010 (UTC) :Wait, there's more. Mary Boleyn had two kids: Catherine Carey, Lady Knollys, and Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon. They were Elizabeth's first cousins, but not on the royal side. Their mother was Henry VIII's mistress. They may or may not have been his children. He did not acknowledge paternity of either of them, and since he had already acknowledged paternity of Henry FitzRoy, he wasn't opposed to doing so on principle. Both Careys predeceased Elizabeth, but at the time of her death they had ten living children between them. Turtle Fan 22:31, August 26, 2010 (UTC) Deletion Nothing should go, but I don't want there to be any confusion on the issue. TR (talk) 04:40, August 10, 2016 (UTC)